Be The Dirt

I recently was asked to preach in our Sunday morning service.  Normally I am working with the children separately, but this Sunday we were all together which was really cool.  Anyway, our Kids Church is looking at the parables over the course of the summer so I continued down that path taking a look at the parable of the sower.  I haven't posted anything on my blog lately so I thought I would share this.  It is long...it was a sermon...so be forewarned.

God wants our friendship with Him to be real. 

Does going to church make you a follower of Jesus?  If your parents (or kids) are followers of Jesus does that mean you are too?  How about if you say you are a Christian? Does that make you a follower of Jesus?  To all these questions the answer is "NO!".

So what makes you a follower of Jesus?

If you receive God’s amazing gift of love by believing that Jesus is the Son of God

and that he died for you, taking the punishment once and for all

for all the times we have disobeyed God,

and that Jesus came back to life beating sin and death for all time

and that you allow Jesus and his love to take root in your heart and change your life.  That makes you a follower of Jesus.

It’s a run on sentence that makes it  all sound pretty simple, doesn’t it?

And it is...for most people under the age of eleven.  There is a reason why Jesus tells us to be like children.  With each passing year as we get older (not grow up, but older) we add our excuses, our guilt, our disappointment, our jaded view of the world to taint the simplicity of such a beautiful, amazing, fantastic truth and it becomes almost a fairytale ... to most of us.  We stop seeing it as Good News and instead it becomes wishful thinking...a vague dream we hope will come true. 

We forget how deep and how wide and how complete and how real God’s love is.

Is God’s love dependent on what we accomplish?

If we disobey God does He stop loving us?

NO - “This is love, in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us...”

God loves us whether we are strong or weak, a wall flower or a superstar, a sports nut or a gamer, Star Wars or Star Trek, Marvel or DC, Starbuck’s or Tim’s, successful or on the brink of foreclosure, obedient or a spiritual failure. 

And His love is BIG – HUGE and Specific. God loves us, yes.  But more importantly God loves YOU! 

You personally and completely and intimately.  He knows who you are, what you think, how you react, your doubts, your fears, your hopes, yours joys...He knows you.  He should, He made you.

He knows all about each one of us and still loves us. 

God loves us with a NEVER STOPPING, UNBREAKING, ALWAYS and forever LOVE.  HIS LOVE DOES NOT DEPEND ON US... GOD’s LOVE IS BECAUSE GOD IS.

Do all the painful, horrible things we see and experience negate God’s love?  Do they make it less? NO, God’s love is even more apparent in those circumstances to those who have allowed it to sink deep down to the very core of who they are.  But I am getting ahead of myself.

Today we are going to be talking about the importance of being the dirt.  Not dirty – no kids...and maybe some adults ...you still have to take baths and brush your teeth.  Today we are going to hear about the parable of the sower and we are going learn that we need to ...BE THE DIRT. 

Over the past few weeks and in the weeks to come we are looking at the Parables in Kids’ Church.  The stories Jesus used to explain the Kingdom of God not just to little people, but to all sorts of people. 

The parables are found in the first four books of the New Testament – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.  Together these books are called The Gospels – which when translated means Good News.  Fantastic news.

The Parable of the Sower is found in Matthew 13:1-23.  It comes in two parts; First, the story and then the explanation.

  Some of you may be thinking...so what does God’s love have to do with the parable.

Well, let’s take a look at the first part of the Story.

13 That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the lake. ² Such large crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat in it, while all the people stood on the shore. ³ Then he told them many things in parables, saying: “A farmer went out to sow his seed. ⁴ As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. ⁵ Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. ⁶ But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. ⁷ Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. ⁸ Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. ⁹ Whoever has ears, let them hear.”

So first we saw the Sower and he scatters the seed all over.  The seed that falls on the pathway,  (what happen to that seed?) where the ground is hard is stolen away by birds.  The seed that falls on the stony ground is happy at first but then the sun comes up (what happens to that seed?) and the plants wither because their roots do not reach the water or nutrients below.  It dies.  Then we see the seeds that fall into the soil that is laced with weeds.  The seeds sprout up and grow but soon the weeds grow up and choke out those plants. They die as well.  And last, there is the seed that falls on the good soil.  The seeds dig deep and the roots reach down into the soil and they grow up and multiply, producing a huge crop.

When I was growing up in Quesnel you could get a job with local farmers as a rock picker.  What do you think the job was? 

That’s right.  There is no mystery to the job.  No job description required.  The farmers knew that rocks were no good if you were trying to plant a field.  The soil needed to be soft and receptive to the seeds that would be planted.  

In the same way every spring and throughout the growing season my grandpa would work hard in his garden to remove all the weeds.  The soil need to be cleared of anything that might encumber the vegetables and fruit he was planning to grow.

When you first look at the parable you might be tempted to think that this is some goofy farmer, even wasteful, tossing seed here and there.

But God certainly isn’t goofy and most certainly isn’t wasteful. The parable of the Sower reminds us of God’s love is intended for everyone.  The seed is spread over all the soils, just as it has been made available to each of us.  For you and me no matter how we choose to respond. Our response determines what happens to the seed – it doesn’t alter God’s love. 

His love is lavish and to some it may seem impractical, even fool hardy but thanks be to God that His extravagant, over the top love is available to everyone – He already decided each one of us would have an opportunity to respond to this GOOD NEWS, to His amazing love. We just have to decide how we are going to respond to it. 

We need to choose what soil we are going to be like.  So again I say be the dirt. 

Let’s look at the second part of the parable...the explanation.

¹⁸ “Listen then to what the parable of the sower means:

¹⁹ When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in their heart. This is the seed sown along the path.

Those who do not understand the message are the ones who are like the path.  So worn down, so firmly and consistently trodden down that the concept of the GOOD NEWS cannot be understood, let alone received. 

Sometimes people hear the message of God’s love but are so broken and so jaded that the understanding of God’s love does not come.  They hear the message and wish they could believe it.  They not only have a tough time believing God exists but if He does, why on earth would He bother with them?

The pessimism and doubt dictates the response to the Good News which is...no response at all.   

²⁰ The seed falling on rocky ground refers to someone who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. ²¹ But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away.

These people hear the Good News and even get excited about it but don’t let it root deep enough.

The seed never obtains any depth. 

How many of you like wind storms? 

I love them, especially, when the power goes out.  But have you ever gone for a walk after a really bad wind storm?  Sometimes you see trees that have been uprooted.

It is interesting to look at their root systems.  They are usually much wider that the tree itself. 

In order for a large tree, or any tree to survive a winds storm the roots have to run wide but they also have to run deep.    

If the roots don’t run deep enough, the winds will push that tree until the shallow system rips through the surface of the soil.  

We are the same way.

The Good News gets planted.  We let roots spread out.  We go to church regularly.  We go to special functions, we give to missions - maybe even volunteer here and there.   

We have nice w  i  d  e root systems.

Look at this picture of what an entire week of food for one North American family looks like all at once.

 What are the first thoughts that come to your mind?  It is a lot of food, isn’t it?

Now what if I told you, you have to sit down at that table and eat it all.  How long do you think it would take? And don’t say a week.

You have to eat all you can in about 60 minutes. 

How many of you would accept that challenge?

 Pretty gross. 

That’s how a lot of people approach their relationship with God.  They go Sunday morning and try and jam as much Spiritual food into their lives as they can in one sitting.

Now, what if I showed you a nice meal?  One meal. In fact, it’s not even a full meal.  A high carb carrot muffin with cream cheese icing and a good fresh coffee. Sounds good right? Tastes good too.

It is a large snack.  A lot of caloric bang for your buck.  That is what church is.  It is meant to be a boost.  A large “spiritual” snack so to speak. 

It is meant to encourage you in your relationship with God.  Not be your relationship with God.

So, you better enjoy your muffin.  That’s all you’re going to get for the next week.

Obesity is a growing concern for the physical health of North Americans, whereas starvation is the biggest spiritual health concern in this day and age.  It seems that spiritually speaking we are malnourished. 

So many people make a decision to follow Jesus and are so excited and then church becomes a social club, an affiliation.  Don’t let this be you.  Be the dirt.

Make sure you are pursuing God every day.  Eat your veggies and read your Bible.  Pray every day.  Give God every day. 

This is not guilt-inducing religious pressure.  This is a practical and disciplined approach to healthy living. 

As a parent I try to ensure my kids are eating vegetables and fruit, protein, and starches.  I want them to be strong and healthy.  They have to eat every day or their bodies will not grow and develop properly. 

If we aren’t pursuing our relationship with God every day, our root system will not reach any depth.  When storms come we will be uprooted. 

When the heat of the day beats down on us we will wither.  Our roots need to run deep so when we face persecution for what we believe or trial for following Biblical truths – however, whenever and for whatever reason it comes or whatever it looks like we will remain rooted firmly in Jesus.

 ²² The seed falling among the thorns refers to someone who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful.

Life dictated by circumstance and distracted by the desire for more. 

I love Spy Movies. 

Good Spy Movies.  Tom Clancy Movies.  Borne Movies.  The New Bond Movies.  MI Movies.  In these movies satellites play an important role.  They allow the good guys to see what the bad guys are doing. 

In Tom Clancy’s Patriot Games they are trying to take a look at a training camp in the Middle East from CIA headquarters in the US.  The problem is the bad guys know when the satellites pass overhead so they all go into their tents. 

Jack Ryan figures this out pretty quickly and is able to get a different satellite re-tasked. 

They are able to reprogram the satellite to focus on this particular area at a different time of day so they can see what they need to see.  Retrieve the information they need and take action.

A lot of us struggle with weeds.  We face a lot of hard stuff. A lot of painful and scary stuff. 

Our tear blurred eyes are often filled up with all that’s going on around us so we will close them and close our hearts. 

Slowly, we become more and more overwhelmed.  We shut our eyes for longer periods of time, thinking just for a moment I need peace. 

Our hearts shut down for longer and longer stretches and find it harder and harder to open up.  It becomes harder and harder to wake up – like frost bite – our hearts find slumber easier and easier. 

Recently, like most people at one point or another, I was feeling a bit overwhelmed with life. 

I had this picture in my head.  I was surrounded by people.  My kids, my husband, the kids from VBS and the church, their parents, all my volunteers, neighbours, even people I didn’t know.  And everyone needed something. 

They weren’t being mean or even overly demanding they just needed or at least that is how I perceived the situation ... well with all of them it was quite overwhelming. 

And in the midst of all these people I was trying to figure out who to help first.  So many people and I was frozen, unable to respond.

I noticed there was a ladder next to me and a hand reaching down.  God grabbed my hand and lifted me up and I was able to see what He saw. 

Who needed to be helped first and how they needed me to help...if they actually needed my help. 

My satellite was re-tasked.  My heart was refocused.  Not on the people.  My heart was refocused on God.  I was looking up and I saw what I needed to see. 

Throughout the past decade and a half I have been reminded over and over again of a song we used to sing when I was in college. “Be Magnified”.

Verse 1
I have made You too small in my eyes
Oh Lord, forgive me
And I have believed in a lie
That You were unable to help me.
But now, Oh Lord, I see my wrong
Heal my heart and show Yourself strong
And in my eyes and with my song
Oh Lord, be magnified

Chorus:
Be magnified, Oh Lord
You are highly exalted
And there is nothing You can't do
Oh Lord, my eyes are on You
Be magnified,
Oh Lord, be magnified

Verse 2
I have leaned on the wisdom of men
Oh Lord, (Please)forgive me
And I have responded to them
Instead of Your light and Your mercy
But now, Oh Lord, I see my wrong
Heal my heart and show yourself strong
And in my eyes and with my song
Oh Lord be magnified

That needs to be our heart’s cry every time we face hardship...every time “Be Magnified oh Lord”. 

Help me to see You instead of this circumstance.  Help me to be overwhelmed by your love instead of being overwhelmed by the world.

 We need to root out the weeds that start to choke the life out of us and it doesn’t start by taking things out of your life.  It starts by making sure God is IN your life. 

If God holds the proper place in our hearts other things will hold proper place as well. 

The Goods News reminds us that life without God isn’t life at all and that His grace IS enough.

I am reading a book right now by Mark Buchannan called the Holy Wild.  In one chapter he talks about the significance of the forgiveness of sin.  He focuses on the story of the friends who bring the sick man to see Jesus in Luke 5:19-25. 

The very sick, bed ridden man is carried to the house where Jesus is teaching.  The home is so crowded the men cannot enter.  Their desperation drives them to the roof.  The tear it open and lower their sick friend down to see Jesus in hopes that he will be healed.

When Jesus sees the sick man and the faith of his friends he says, “Friend, your sins are forgiven.”

Mark Buchannan tries to imagine what the men were all thinking.  They wanted a miracle. 

 (He writes)They wanted to see dead nerves spark to life, stiff flesh grow supple, wilted muscles stretch and tighten.  They wanted to see the man dance a jig, toss a ball, do a handstand, pick up a stone...

Listen to what Jesus says,

 “That you may know that the Son of Man has authority to forgive sins…I tell you, “Get up, take your mat and go home.”  

Jesus does it to vouch for a GREATER AUTHORITY that He possesses, a more staggering power He wields – the ability to forgive sins. 

To reform sin-ravaged hearts.  To cleanse leprosy-numbed souls.  To cure pride-blinded spirits.  To cleanse folly – choked minds.  To make us holy. To make us whole.”

When we allow the GOOD News to sink deep in our hearts the forgiveness of our sin defines, more than anything else WHO GOD IS. 

It reiterates that He is HOLY, HE IS LOVING, HE IS JUST, and HE IS GOOD.  When accept God’s forgiveness and it roots run deep down in us we begin to understand the heart of God.  God’s desire for us is to live... to really LIVE.  Not just merely walk through life.  BUT TO LIVE. 

Amy Davies is working in a home for disabled children in Nepal.  In addition to her work with the children she also volunteers with disabled adults in another care home where the situation is even more desperate. 

We live in a country where if your child is injured you have access to physicians who will do what they can to help your child get well.  If the injuries cannot be repaired we have access to physiotherapists, prosthetics, counselors - who are able to able to help make life workable.  Liveable.  Not easy, but easier. Wheelchair access, CNIB, War amps, Zajacks Ranch, all these and many more organizations try to help people live full lives despite the physical challenges they face.  Where Amy is – help is limited and hard to access. 

Can you imagine if we started praying and people started getting healed?  Burn victims have their skin restored glowing and smooth, backs are straightened, muscles toned and strengthened.  Fingers and legs regrown.  Cataract clouded eyes brightened and see.  Can you imagine?  We would be blown AWAY!  But those miracles would be chaff, fluff, and temporary fixes in the light of eternity.

Jesus forgives sin. That is the miracle. 

The man who is bedridden sure he might get up and walk but his self worth is still related to his own ability.    His future is still dependant on mere flesh and bone and is finite.  But when God steps in eternity takes over and that is A MIRACLE! 

Our value lies in God’s love for us. 

The burned woman realizes she IS lovely because HE LOVES her.  The paralyzed man doesn’t walk HE SOARS!  When Jesus enters our hearts He was us to see really see.  “I once was lost but now I am found, was blind but now I see!”

We need to re-task our satellites.  Our focus needs to shift from the world around us and what it says we should want and what it says we need to the God who loves us and provides all we need.

When we let His love into our hearts, when it roots deep down in our hearts the weeds don’t have a chance.  We stop being consumers and are consumed - by Him. 

Be the dirt.

²³ But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.”

A life of faith and love, rooted deep in God’s Word and His love.

Buchanan shares this story

The number of Christians martyred in the twentieth century far outstripped the combined number of martyrs in the 19 prior centuries, and in the infancy of this millennium there is no sign of the bloodshed abating.

And the Jews, their suffering didn’t begin in Germany in the 1930s and ‘40s.  It was only consummated there.  Persecution of the Jewish people began four thousand years ago and has carried on since, almost without interruption.

Yet strangely, it’s these very ones-those who have suffered most deeply, generation after generation-who are often the first to testify to God’s love.  I think of my friend Helen, a Russian immigrant whose Baptist family perished in one of Stalin’s concentration camps. 

She escaped into Germany, just a girl, and found herself conscripted into forced labour under Hitler. 

She came to Canada after the war and was attacked by her cousin, the one person she trusted, the man who had promised her and the government that he would take care of her.

Her life has been a graveyard of loss, a scrap yard of betrayal.  But ask her any day what she knows, and she’ll tell you, “God is good.  He loves me.” 

Her conviction about that hasn’t come by toting up her days of wounds and wars, weighing them against her days of laughter and bounty, seeing which tips the scale. 

Her belief has a taproot: God simply is who He says He is, regardless of what her troubles might have tempted her to think or surmise. 

She is part of that great cloud of witnesses who, living by faith, refuse to reduce God to their own experience, to limit His love by the evidence of their own circumstance.

When we understand, really get it, our faith sustains.  It runs deep.  To our core. 

Like Ironman’s arch reactor – God’s love and our understanding of it - powers us... No matter what challenges we face we will have strength because we have God.  It is a God sustained power that never faulters - never.

Our life is marked by strength but even more so by a joy that to other people just does not make sense.  We don’t run around like a bunch of giddy lunatics, but the peace and the hope we experience is not of this world.  It is beyond their understanding.

¹⁰ The disciples came to him and asked, “Why do you speak to the people in parables?”

¹¹ He replied, “Because the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them.

¹² Whoever has will be given more, and they will have abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. ¹³ This is why I speak to them in parables:

“Though seeing, they do not see;
though hearing, they do not hear or understand.

¹⁴ In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah:

“‘You will be ever hearing but never understanding;
you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.
¹⁵ For this people’s heart have become calloused;
they hardly hear with their ears,
and they have closed their eyes.
Otherwise they might see with their eyes,
hear with their ears,
understand with their heart
and turn, and I would heal them.’

¹⁶ But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. ¹⁷ For truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.

We are very lucky, fortunate, blessed, however you want to describe it.  We have access to God’s Word and knowledge of His love. 

We can read our Bible and pray. 

We can gather and share what God has done for us and what He continues to do in our lives. 

We can remind each other and encourage each other with God’s love.

We His children.  God’s children.  The CREATOR of HEAVEN AND EARTH IS OUR FATHER and HE LOVES us.  He loves YOU and we are blessed!

1John 4 reads, ⁹ God has shown His love to us by sending His only Son into the world. God did this so we might have life through Christ. ¹⁰ This is love! It is not that we loved God but that He loved us. For God sent His Son to pay for our sins with His own blood.

If we let the seed of God’s word root deep into our hearts no one and no thing will be able to steal it away. 

The circumstances we face may be painful, even unbearable, and threaten to scorch our very souls but we are not alone and we will be reassured by God’s love.

 We will not be overcome by the worries of this world, but we will remember that Christ already over came this world and has made us over comers! 

We will focus not who we are or what we face but instead focus on WHO GOD IS!  GOD IS GOOD!  GOD IS UNCHANGING! GOD IS JUST! GOD IS FAITHFUL! GOD IS LOVE!

³⁷ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. ³⁸ For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, ³⁹ neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

¹⁶ But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. ¹⁷ For truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.

Be the dirt...  Some of us need the seed of God’s love to reawaken in our hearts.  There is still life in that seed. 

Some of our hearts need to soften and allow the roots of God’s love to run deep down. 

And some of us need to retask.  To refocus on God.  To let Him be magnified.  To be overwhelmed by God and His grace and His mercy rather than the world around us and the weak and insulting God-substitutes it tempts us with.

Let us recommit as a believers, as a church, as families and as individuals to see with our eyes, hear with our ears and understand with our hearts and turn, and allow Him to heal us.